


I Will Take You Home

by triggeringthehealing (froggydarren)



Series: FullmoonFiclet Entries [14]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hypothermia, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pre-Slash, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggydarren/pseuds/triggeringthehealing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a cold spell in California that winter, and when Stiles drives out to Derek's house in the Preserve, a snowstorm hits before he can make it back to town safely. Stuck in the house, they work on keeping the cold out, but when Derek takes too long gathering firewood, Stiles can't help but follow him into the woods to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Take You Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyn2deep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyn2deep/gifts).



> Written for the Full Moon Ficlet challenge on Livejournal, [prompt #137: Ice](http://fullmoon-ficlet.livejournal.com/347219.html)

“We’re in _California_!”

“Yes, Stiles, I’ve noticed,” Derek snorts, but doesn’t turn around, his hands too busy trying to get the windows of the old house closed properly.

“California, though,” Stiles mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Derek’s ears to pick up the words. “It’s supposed to be warm, slightly chilly _at most_. Not a fucking blizzard in the middle of October.”

“It’s not like it’s a first,” Derek supplies, knowing that it’s not going to help Stiles’ frustration. “We did have the one winter when everything was white for months.”

“Yeah, and I’d remember that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was _three_ then,” Stiles shoots back immediately, then drops a pile of towels by Derek’s feet. “These the ones you were looking for?”

“Thanks,” Derek says in acknowledgment. “I’ll pop out for some firewood in a bit, okay? Stay in here.”

There’s softness to his voice as he says that, and it strengthens when he notices Stiles shivering a little because of the draft he didn’t manage to isolate away yet.

“If you want to, you can grab one of my jackets,” he adds when Stiles doesn’t respond to Derek’s comment on getting wood for the fireplace.

He’d hesitated about getting one installed in the house, the memories of what happened there before are something he’s acknowledged will never completely go away. This fireplace is well-guarded, though, stone and magic wards set up around it so history doesn’t repeat, not even accidentally. Stiles made a point to not only help Derek choose materials that aren’t easily flammable when they were rebuilding the house, but also focused on protective magic when he started learning. Not that he told Derek what the reason was.

Of course, Derek never asked, and anyone else didn’t either, when Stiles requested that Deaton should start off teaching him protective spells, regardless of some of them being way more advanced than Stiles’ experience allowed. Deaton especially didn’t question when Stiles looked up fire protection spells, though that was something that neither of them discussed with the rest of the pack. Eventually, when they did build the fireplace, Derek’s only reaction to Stiles’ protective magic was a raised eyebrow and a determined silence.

“Uh, I don’t think your leather ones will do much against the cold,” Stiles pipes up and interrupts Derek’s musings about the fireplace.

“Idiot,” Derek sighs and reaches into the front hallway closet, “I do have winter ones, too. Which you would know if you’d looked.”

“Well excuuuuuuse me,” Stiles rolls his eyes but then accepts the jacket Derek hands over and mutters, “thank you.”

It fits surprisingly well, Stiles realizes, and it’s not only because he’s as tall as Derek or because of the muscles he’s managed to somehow develop since he started running with the pack. Instead it feels like Derek has a spare jacket in his closet that’s Stiles’ size, which makes Stiles pause and frown.

“Der?”

But by the time the words are out, Derek is already out of the door, the quiet click of it shutting the only indication that it was even open. Stiles sighs and turns to the towels that are still in a pile underneath the windows, ready to be lined around the edges to keep out the cold. Instead of dwelling on what he files away as a coincidence, even though part of his brain is yelling at him that from experience _nothing ever happens without reason_ , he starts to put the towels in place along the windows and any other potential gaps he finds. There aren’t many, but by the time he’s done, the moving around has warmed him up at least a little bit. With Derek still outside, Stiles rummages through the small pile of wood that is already next to the fireplace and prepares it to be lit, then checks over his spells to make sure they’re solid, and will hold even if they light a stronger fire later on.

“Did you go chop down trees, sourwolf?” Stiles mutters to himself when he peeks out of the window to try and spot Derek.

He can’t see anything beyond the end of the porch, the snowfall heavier than when he last bothered to look outside. Derek is nowhere in sight, though Stiles only expected him to be right by the door and chopping some of the already piled up wood into smaller pieces. With the history of just about everything in their past, Stiles immediately feels his nerves vibrate with worry. He pulls the jacket closer around himself and walks out of the door.

“Derek?”

There’s no need to call out loud, he knows, since with werewolf hearing, Derek is either close enough to hear, or too far that even shouting wouldn’t reach him. And Stiles hasn’t yet figured out how to howl like a wolf, seeing as he is _not_ one. So he makes sure the door is closed securely and then he steps out into the blizzard, immediately cursing the cold.

“Where did you go, sourwolf?” Stiles mutters to himself when he’s halfway around the house and there’s no sign of the other man.

He ventures a little further away from the house after the first circle around it, nearer the woods surrounding it, but not quite past the tree line. Visibility is shit, Stiles realizes, so if he wants to see anything _inside_ the forest, he’ll have to go in.

“You could’ve at least told me how long it would take you,” he keeps mumbling as he fights his way through a thick brush. “It’s not like you know me to sit around and _wait_.”

Once he’s past the line of bushes that line the clearing around the house, Stiles knows that it’s easier to get _through_ , but it also means that the snow can get between the trees and once again, he can’t see too far ahead. Grumbling, he keeps walking in what he thinks is a straight line, towards another clearing that Derek showed him a while ago, with trees suitable for chopping down. He’s been in the woods often enough to know some parts of them by heart, enough to be able to walk through practically blind.

“Seriously, Derek, if you went as far as I think you did, you may as well have left me for dead in the house with almost no heat,” Stiles hisses to himself and tries to figure out how far he’s gone.

Then, a few steps into the white flurries of snow, his choice of footwear -- it’s not like he planned on hiking when he grabbed his trusty Converse that morning -- proves to be his downfall. Literally. There’s a branch or something like it he tries to grab for that isn’t steady and then he’s sliding and falling and flailing his arms until he lands with an “oomph” into the brook that is further away from the house than he thought he was.

“Oh great, now I’m wet,” he groans and immediately shivers. “In f-fucking sub-zero t-temperatures.”

He manages to get up, feet still submerged in water, and looks over his clothes to survey the damage. Noticing that the jacket is mostly dry, unlike his jeans, Stiles lets out a sigh of relief. It doesn’t last long, and really he should’ve known not to jinx himself. One of the trees that hangs over the brook shakes when he grips it to get out, and the next thing he knows a bunch of snow is on top of him _and_ behind the collar of not only his jacket but also his T-shirt.

“Fucking… _fuck_!” Stiles squeaks and the shivers get stronger.

“‘m not that far,” he mutters when he manages to get out of the water.

He starts moving, despite the shivers getting stronger and the need to hold on to something increasing with every step. Aware that he wandered further away from the house than he thought, Stiles grinds his teeth to stop them from chattering and tries to keep moving. He stumbles on almost everything as his legs become heavier, but coordination has never been his strong point, so it doesn’t particularly worry him. What does make him pause is when he feels the cold settle on his skin, and when he stops trembling like a leaf.

There’s a word that’s skirting around the edges of his thoughts, one that Stiles knows he should not find hard to think of or say, but his mind is more scattered than usual. When he opens his mouth to try and say it, since he knows that sometimes saying things out loud makes them easier to process, he feels how heavy his tongue seems to be and the words don’t come out. The snow that lodged itself under his clothes has melted and Stiles can feel the dampness of the fabric against his skin.  He gives up on trying to decipher his thoughts, pulls the waterlogged jacket closer and lifts his foot to try and step over a fallen tree trunk. It’s higher than he expects it to be though, and his foot catches on the surface, which throws him off balance and sends him sprawling into the snow drift.

Every movement after than becomes near impossible, and he feels exhaustion creeping up on him. Stiles tries to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids droop and he gives in to it. He uses the rest of his energy to try and reach for a branch hanging low above his head, but his fingers are stiff and weak.

 _Sleep,_ he thinks and tugs the collar of the jacket closer, _I’ll just nap and then try again_.

Part of his brain is aware of the stupidity of that idea, but Stiles knows that he doesn’t have the energy to move again. He feels a wave of warmth pass through his body and lets it take over, allows the tiredness to pull him down as he curls up on the ground.

 _Better_ , crosses his mind moments later. He feels like he’s floating, a hint of heat surrounds him and the next thing he knows is that there’s air blowing into his face and his brain supplies the word _safe_.

***

The house is quiet and that alone sets Derek’s senses on alert the moment he drops the pile of chopped up wood next to the fireplace. He left Stiles to finish covering up all the gaps around the doors and windows, and a quick glance around the room confirms to Derek that all of that is done. But there is no Stiles anywhere in the room, and Derek can’t smell the familiar scent nearby.

“Fuck, Stiles, where are you?” Derek grumbles quietly as he peeks into the kitchen and then the bedrooms.

It’s when he finds the bathroom doors open that he realizes that Stiles isn’t in the house at all.

“Fuck! I _told you_ to stay inside,” Derek says louder than he planned to, his worry matching his anger.

Moments later, Derek is out on the porch, his nose trying to detect Stiles’ scent in the air that’s filled with heavy snowfall. He curses under his breath when he finds a trace of the mixed scent of Stiles and himself -- courtesy of what he assumes is the jacket that he gave Stiles -- leading into the tree line around the clearing.

The scent leads Derek into the forest, at first towards the part he went to for the extra wood, but then it veers in a different direction and towards the brook. The thought alone makes him curse again and he tries to walk faster. He considers running, but he’s afraid of losing the scent if he shifts. Once he’s at the brook, it disappears anyway, and Derek starts panicking when he can’t smell anything, because he realizes it means that Stiles at the very least crossed the water and at the worst fell into it. In sub-zero temperatures.

“Stiles, where are you,” he whispers to himself. “Why did you even go out, you idiot.”

When his voice fades out, Derek hears it. A thump from a direction near to where Derek just came from, but far enough that he passed by it without noticing. It’s followed by a haunting silence, but it’s enough for Derek to take off running in pursuit of the sound.

“Stiles!” Derek calls out as he brushes past branches.

It’s not that he’s expecting to hear anything back, he just runs towards the sound he heard, hoping he won’t miss the source of it in the thickening snowfall. He almost does, as he jumps over a fallen tree, but then there’s a quiet gasp right behind him that makes him glance back. There, on top of a pile of snow that drifted in from uphill, he spots a glimpse of the familiar fabric of the jacket he gave Stiles earlier, though it’s covered with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow.

“Fuck! No, _Stiles_ ,” Derek groans in anguish when he wheels around and crouches next to the curled up body on the ground.

Stiles doesn’t react, and Derek breathes out first when he doesn’t feel shivers coming from him. But then his hand reaches out and he feels the dampness and coldness of the fabric. Suddenly, the lack of trembling begins making sense and Derek panics.

_Hypothermia: symptoms include shivering, clumsiness, tiredness and weakened body functions. As the condition worsens…_

The definition runs through Derek’s mind, and it makes him realize that Stiles isn’t shivering anymore because it’s gotten worse.

“I wasn’t away that long,” he mumbles to himself while he tries to figure out a way to pick Stiles up. “Just how fast did you leave the house after I went out. You couldn’t _stay put_ like I told you, could you?”

Derek’s mood is switching between frustrated and worried, and he finally manages to scoop Stiles up into his arms. The snow isn’t letting up but it’s not getting _worse_ either, to Derek’s relief. He doesn’t hesitate once he has Stiles up off the ground, and he starts running. He listens closely to the barely audible sound of Stiles’ breathing and heartbeat while he can, but then switches his focus on getting back to the house as fast as he can. Derek knows there’s no point trying to get Stiles anywhere, though a hospital is an option that briefly crosses his mind. It’s too far away, though, his car _and_ Stiles’ Jeep are snowed in by now, so he doesn’t dwell on that option and instead rushes through the door and into the still cool house.

“Fire, clothes, _fuck_ , which one do I do first,” Derek grumbles when he sets Stiles down on the couch, and then he pulls it closer to the fireplace.

He can see Stiles twitching and clenching his fingers around the wet jacket that’s hardened a little with the frost setting in.

“Clothes, okay,” Derek mumbles and almost falls into his bedroom in his rush to grab something clean and warm. “This isn’t how I thought it would happen,” he whispers with a hint of bitterness when he starts pulling Stiles’ fingers off of the jacket.

It takes a little while and a considerable amount of effort to get Stiles’ hands off the jacket and then the jacket off Stiles’ arms, but Derek doesn’t pause. Stiles’ shoes are off in an instant after, but Derek does stop when he realizes that the jeans are soaked through from where Stiles must’ve fallen into the water.

“Come on,” he mutters. “Man up, Hale, he needs to be _out_ of these.”

The denim is a struggle to peel off, and Derek tries hard to focus on the task at hand, his fingers twitching as they come in contact with Stiles’ cool skin. After a split second of hesitation, Derek leaves the final layer -- Stiles’ boxers that have somehow managed to not get completely wet -- on, then he rushes to his closet and pulls the sweatpants he grabs from it over Stiles’ legs.

When he takes a breath as he hovers his fingers over Stiles’ shirt, Derek startles because his scent is now mixing with Stiles’ stronger -- all the clothes in the house are soaked with Derek’s, but it combines with Stiles’ immediately. Something inside his chest skips, and he tries hard to not let it distract him, but his wolf is growling deep inside. It’s been a while since he allowed himself to acknowledge how possessive he feels about the boy in front of him. _Boy, still_ , Derek thinks, reminding himself of Stiles’ age -- sure, he’s eighteen now, but it hasn’t been that long and it’s a strong habit to get out of. He isn’t distracted for too long, but the combination of the dry pants and the lack of the frozen layers is enough to bring the shivers back, and Derek is reminded of the task at hand. He unbuttons Stiles’ shirt quickly and peels it off, then tugs the T-shirt that’s underneath off too.

“Warm,” Stiles breaks the silence that settled in the house with a mumble, and Derek can’t help but smile as he pulls an oversized hoodie over Stiles’ head, glad to not be met with resistance.

He pulls a blanket from a pile by the couch and tucks it around Stiles, until only his head is peeking out. It’s resting on the back of the couch and Stiles’ eyes are still closed, but Derek seeks out the beat of Stiles’ heart and finally allows himself to let out a relieved breath, because it’s steadier and stronger already. When he turns to the fireplace and sees that Stiles has already set it up to be lit, Derek hesitates for only a moment before he reaches for the matches and pushes away his worries when his eyes land on the tiny flame. Moments later the kindling is flickering under the bigger pieces of wood, and Derek turns back to the couch. Immediately, his eyebrows scrunch in worry, because Stiles is shivering strongly enough that it’s making the whole blanket shake.

“How do I warm you up?” Derek mutters to himself.

There’s only one way he can think of, and pushing away his hesitation about being physically close to Stiles without an unwelcome reaction, Derek slips off his own jacket and boots, and then he slides under the blanket next to Stiles. His arms tug Stiles’ shoulders closer until he has Stiles basically laying down on top of Derek. He hears the hum and feels Stiles’ fingers digging into his skin, and Derek’s mind is calmer when the shivers get weaker.

***

Stiles doesn’t open his eyes, but he can feel the heat surround him. It’s then that his mind finally offers the word he struggled to find earlier. _Hypothermia_ , he thinks, and shivers violently despite the warmth that’s slowly thawing his chilled body. He remembers reading up on it, back when they thought they were going to face an ice sprite, and he thought he’d need to be prepared for the chance that one of the pack would get hit with a freezing spell. Knowing about the fake feeling of warmth that’s one of the stages of hypothermia is what makes Stiles worry at first. It’s only when he tries to move that he realizes that he’s no longer in the forest _or_ in his soaked clothes. There’s an arm around his waist and it’s holding him close when he tries to turn around to figure out where he is and what happened since he was in the snow.

“Stop moving,” a grumpy voice interrupts his frantic thoughts.

“Der… Derek?” Stiles responds and finally opens his eyes.

He nearly jumps at the realization that they’re on Derek’s couch and  -- no matter how else he tries to describe it, nothing else seems accurate enough -- _cuddling_. Or at least Derek is holding Stiles close, and Stiles is lying on top of Derek, with less layers of fabric between them than he's expecting. And _whoa_ , where did his jeans go?

“Did you undress me?” Stiles blurts before he can think better of it.

“Your clothes were soaked and frozen, what do you think?” Derek grumbles back.

“Not how I thought it’d happen,” Stiles whispers and immediately curses his lack of filter.

Derek tenses underneath him when the words register because _of course_ Stiles would say something like that without thinking of Derek’s super-hearing. He’s about to take the words back when Derek’s arm tightens around him and mumbles something back that takes a while for Stiles’ brain to process.

“Me neither,” are the words Stiles thinks he hears.

But that can’t be right, Stiles muses. There’s no way Derek would be… no, he must be imagining things because why would Derek have thought of undressing Stiles?

“Stop squirming,” Derek grumbles then, and Stiles stills immediately.

“You…” Stiles starts, but the words get stuck in his throat.

 _You wanted to undress me. You_ \-- his heart stutters when he glances down and realizes what he’s wearing -- _put me in your clothes. You saved me. Again._

“I did,” Derek says quietly and makes Stiles realize he’s been mumbling the words instead of just thinking them, which makes him blush. “Stiles, relax. Sleep. We’ll talk later.”

Derek’s tone is softer than Stiles has ever heard, with maybe the exception of that one time when Cora was sick and Stiles happened to overhear Derek talking to her. He tugs a hand from under the blanket and slowly, with hesitation that is not his strongest point, brings it to Derek’s face as he finally looks up to Derek’s face. When Stiles’ cold fingers brush against the warm skin on Derek’s cheek, Stiles can feel the shiver that the temperature difference causes to both of them.

“Stiles,” Derek breathes out at the touch. “Sleep, okay?”

“Thank you,” Stiles whispers back, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth.

Then he allows himself to close his eyes, rests his head on Derek’s shoulder, and he lets the tiredness take over.


End file.
